Construction Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Construction Law - Essay Example placed on par with other kinds of projects because delays in construction and claims arising out of such delays have always been an integral part of construction law. According to Yates and Epstein, there is an enormous amount of time, energy and cost that is devoted to delay claims which do not strictly begin around the time of completion of the job, rather these delays commence right at the inception stage of the project itself.2 The Protocol states that the process of analysis of delay can only begin to be addressed when there is an understanding about what work was carried out and when such work was carried out, as a result, the Protocol recommends that contractors maintain a written record of what work is to be carried out on the project and when it is to be done over the specified time period. However, as McCredie points out, this causes difficulties, not only in terms of the extensive record keeping which the contractor will now have to maintain, but also from the point of vie w of correlating those records with schedules and locations3. In the case of Great eastern Hotel Company Ltd4, charges of negligence by contractor and resultant losses thereof as claimed by Great eastern Hotel were not upheld by the court and no relief was allowed for losses sustained. In this case, the difficulties in establishing causation of delay leading to losses were also demonstrated. There is no definite court precedent to establish causation of loss due to delays and in this case, it was pointed out that the Courts have not laid down any formal tests to establish causation, rather they have relied upon commonsense and an interpretation of the individual facts in a particular case in order to determine whether the breach of the contract was a sufficiently substantial cause of the claimant’s loss.5 Therefore the party that violates the contract is liable only if the breach was in effect the â€Å"effective cause† of his loss.6 An action for losses caused by a breach of